The Group Seven Widowed Fathers Reimagine Life

Loss and grief are universal human experiences that cause profound suffering. Unfortunately, most people are unaware of current research on bereavement and ways to promote healthy coping. The Group: Seven Widowed Fathers and Adaptation to Tragic Loss tackles this problem head-on. By chronicling the challenges and triumphs of a remarkable group of men who were left to raise young children after their wives died, this book offers a novel perspective and inspiration to anyone facing life's inevitable hardships. The Group is inspired by an innovative program at the University of North Carolina (UNC) at Chapel Hill. As directors of the Single Fathers Due to Cancer Program, the authors lead support groups for recently widowed fathers facing the simultaneous challenges of mourning their wives' deaths and raising their grieving children. The experiences of the seven men from the original support group - Karl, Neill, Bruce, Joe, Dan, Steven, and Russell - provide the raw material for this book. These men met monthly for four years and forged a tight bond. They encouraged each other through painful setbacks and celebrated increasingly frequent successes as sole parents. They also "gave back?to other fathers by helping to launch a research program on widowed parenthood and end-of-life supportive care for young parents. Their individual stories and shared experiences reveal important insights about coping with any kind of loss. As the support group matured, it became apparent that traditional approaches to bereavement were not helpful for these men. For example, the still widely accepted "five stages of grief" model, introduced by Dr. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross in her 1969 bestseller On Death and Dying, failed to capture the unique circumstances of widowed fatherhood. The bereavement field has made major advances over the past few decades; however, these insights about both normal and pathological grief have yet to penetrate the public's consciousness. This book integrates for the lay reader poignant narratives from the fathers in the support group with the latest advances in grief resolution, resilience, positive psychology, meaning-making, and post-traumatic growth. The Group is also rich with contemporary theory and data that one would expect from an academically-oriented book on grief and adaptation. This is a story being told for the first time that has relevance to anyone who has suffered a meaningful loss. The book will be particularly interesting to those who have recently experienced the loss of a loved one as well as professionals in the fields of grief counseling, mental health, hospice, palliative care, and oncology. Drs. Rosenstein and Yopp created the Single Fathers Due to Cancer Program at UNC five years ago to address the almost completely overlooked needs of widowed fathers. Since establishing this program, it has expanded well beyond the initial support group to include educational services for oncologists and hospital staff, an online resource for widowed fathers (www.singlefathersduetocancer.org http://www.singlefathersduetocancer.org) and a research program dedicated to families affected by advanced cancer. These efforts have led to the largest data set ever collected from widowed parents. The Single Fathers Due to Cancer Program has garnered national media attention (Jane Brody, New York Times; NBC's Today Show) and published in leading peer-reviewed academic journals. Drs. Rosenstein and Yopp speak regularly at domestic and international professional conferences on end-of-life care and bereavement.

Donald L. Rosenstein, M.D. is a psychiatrist and Professor in the Departments of Medicine and Psychiatry at UNC where he directs the Comprehensive Cancer Support Program. Dr. Rosenstein was formerly at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, Maryland, where he held several leadership positions including National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) Clinical Director, Chief of the NIH Psychiatry Consultation-Liaison Service and Chair of both the Clinical Center Ethics Committee and the NIMH Institutional Review Board. He is a senior clinician and active researcher with expertise in the psychiatric care of patients with cancer and other medical illnesses. Dr. Rosenstein is Past-President of the Academy of Psychosomatic Medicine. Justin M. Yopp, Ph.D. is a clinical psychologist and an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at UNC. Through his clinical work in the Comprehensive Cancer Support Program, he provides diagnostic and therapeutic services to children and adults with cancer. Dr. Yopp specializes in caring for terminally ill patients and their families. He previously served as the coordinator of the inpatient psychological consultation-liaison service at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee. Together, the authors are the creators of the Single Fathers Due to Cancer Program.